17 Social Customer Service Reports You Can’t Live Without!

I have the best job in the world. I get to do what I truly love which is help clients improve their social customer service programs. I’ve been fortunate to be in this small but growing niche for almost 5 years now after spending 9 years helping some of the largest global contact centers provide a world-class customer experience to their consumers. After all these years the questions I get asked most is very similar across all the industries I’m fortunate to work in.

How do I measure the value of social care?

What metrics and KPI’s should I track?

What is the ROI of social care?

These questions of course are answered by the reporting you have in place to analyze and optimize social customer service performance. I thought you might find it helpful if I shared a quick list based on my experience on the reports I found most valuable. I’m sure I’ve missed many that you are using today, please share them in the comments section so others can learn from what is working for you!

Enjoy.

#1 – Inbound Volume by Day

Response time is a critical metric and the best way to reduce it is to make sure you are staffed when your consumers are posting to social networks. I had a client whose volume only went down 20% on the weekend but was only staffing Monday through Friday. They used an inbound volume report by day to secure investment for weekend resources.

#2 – Inbound Volume by Hour

Similar to the report above, it’s also important to know when during the day consumers are posting. Again, to optimize response time, agents should be staffed to mimic the highest volume periods of the day. A previous client staffed 8-5pm EST but after analyzing inbound volume by hour realized 5-10pm EST was the highest volume posting time. This actionable data gave them the proof they needed to create a second shift of agents and stagger them across the day to reduce response time.

#3 – Response Time

At first glance this metric seems straight forward. Simply, how long does it take to respond to consumers posting in social media? However, most clients don’t want the time they aren’t monitoring social sites to count against them. (i.e. If consumer posts on 5pm on Friday and response is sent 10am Monday, the response time is only a few hours, not a few days since there is no weekend coverage). There is only one metric for response time, that is customer time, the customer doesn’t care when you monitor or not, it does not improve your service to play games with the numbers. Second complexity is many social posts require multiple back and forth engagements before the case is closed, so is response time from the first engagement or when the case is closed? I’d argue its important to report on both so see #4.

#4 – Case Close Time

With Response Time we learned its critical to track how long it takes to provide that initial response to a consumer’s social media post. Case Close Time tracks the total time it takes to close a post or case. It’s ok to follow-up and have some back and forth with a consumer to resolve their issue, but it doesn’t do any good to respond quickly on the first engagement only to frustrate the consumer because it takes a day or two to ultimately close out their case.

#5 – Customer Satisfaction or Net Promoter Score

In Twitter I recommend sending a follow-up tweet immediately after closing out a social post that says, “On a scale of 0-10, 10 being very likely, how likely are you to recommend our social customer service?” If you have cell numbers for your consumers and have the ability to send short text/SMS surveys, that is a good option as well. (i.e. Rate your social customer service experience 1-5 by texting 1-5 to 12345. AT&T is using this method.

#6 – Total Volume Trended Over Time

It’s not atypical to see social care volume growth rates increasing 50% a year as more and more consumers adopt social as a support channel. With growth rates that significant it requires contact center managers to constantly evaluate their staffing and hiring approach. Perhaps traditional channels like email and phone are decreasing over time and that pool of agents can be allocated to the social channel.

#7 – Likes, Shares, Favorites, Retweets

These metrics are typically used by social marketers to measure the success of social content published on Facebook and Twitter. However, they are also great service metrics to show the value of responses coming directly from social customer service agents. If consumers appreciate your responses and see them as helpful they will positively share it with a like or RT.

#8 – Top Issues, Questions, Praise

The most successful contact centers have always taken the goldmine of feedback from the voice of the customer and shared that actionable data back across the enterprise so products and services can be improved. Social is no different and is probably even more critical because social word of mouth is so much more powerful than the phone, email and chat channels.  For example, every month product management should be receiving reports on the top 10 complaints, questions and praise consumers have posted on social networks. Trending these metrics over time, comparing them to previous time periods and percent change are also elements to be considered for these type of reports.

#9 – Open Case Visibility

When cases are open, that means a customer is waiting. It’s critical to have a report view into how many open cases, case age, agent assigned and type of case to make sure open case volume is proactively managed.

#10 – Volume by Social Site

It’s important to break down inbound volume by Twitter, Facebook, Google +, etc. Typically agents are assigned to queues or sites so understanding the volume can help align the right coverage for each social channel.

#11 – Reporting by Tags/Labels

Especially with Twitter and its 140 characters, it can be tough to get enough actionable data from a tweet to share with the rest of the organization. However, most social listening and contact tools provide the ability to add tags or additional labels to social interactions which you can then report on. For example, adding specific product or brand names, location info if you are a retailer or restaurant, perhaps adding severity level to a post to understand the frequency of high priority issues.

#12 – Reporting by Influencers

All consumers deserve your best service, however, we can’t ignore the impact of influencers in social media. Because of that, its important to be able to filter almost all of the above reports by posts from influencers. Top complaints from influencers, response time for influencers, open cases by influencers, NPS/CSAT by influencers are all valuable in looking at how your social care is impacted by Klout scores and follower counts.

#13 – Cross Channel Reporting

Social is just one piece of the overall consumer support experience. Although rapidly growing, for most companies social is still less than 5% of overall support volume compared to phone and email. However, leading contact centers are integrating social into their CRM tool so they can report on not just social metrics but also cross-channel key performance indicators. For example, top issues by channel, cost per contact per channel, CSAT by channel and agent productivity by channel. To be clear, by channel I mean phone, email, chat, self service, communities and social.

#14 – Engagement Rate

In my experience clients can get too wrapped up in reviewing social posts and deciding if its technically a support post or if a post requires action. The bottom line is the consumer took the time to post something on one of your social properties, don’t they deserve a response? Isn’t friendly engagement one of the ways you build better community and a stronger presence on Facebook and Twitter? I think so and that is why I think its important to measure the total amount of posts you receive and divide it by the total number of engagements or responses to get your engagement rate. This is especially important for Twitter handles dedicated to support.

#15 – Social Profiles Captured

One of the single toughest challenges facing the social customer service community is understanding if @ChadSchaeffer on Twitter is the Chad Schaeffer in Plymouth, MI with a phone number and email address in a CRM database. Linking social id’s with traditional customer info is required for the 360 view of the customer so many marketers and service professionals aspire to. Consequently, measuring how many social profiles are being added and combined in your CRM system is a new metric I think leading professionals will begin to track and communicate.

#16 – Social Resolution Rate

A new personal favorite of mine is measuring the rate you are able to resolve a consumer’s issue within the social media channel. Too many times I’m seeing brands respond with “call us at 1-800 or email us by clicking this link”. If consumers wanted to use the phone or email to contact you they would have chosen those channels in the first place. I also don’t buy the all too convenient response of ‘we don’t want to discuss issues over social’, private messaging is available in both Twitter and Facebook to conveniently resolve consumer issues more discretely. Fundamentally, consumers are choosing social support channels because they require less effort than filling out a long email form or waiting on hold and fumbling through an IVR.

#17 – Productivity

The reason I saved productivity for last is because it’s the least important social care metric. I think the industry is learning over time that quality is always better than speed when it comes to measuring customer satisfaction. Zappos has publicly stated they don’t even measure handle time anymore for any service channel. Average time on case and average cases closed per day by agent should only be used as a coaching tool or directional guide. You might even find the agents with higher handle times also have higher CSAT or NPS scores!

 

Social Customer Service Rankings: Where Do You Stack Up?

It was May 2001 and I was just kicking off my first contact center software implementation as a project manager. Consumers were rapidly adopting email as an innovative communication method and big companies were trying to figure out how to manage this incredibly modern support channel.

Overnight major brands were receiving millions of support emails a year. For some clients email eventually surpassed phone as the primary contact method.

In May of 2009, 8 years later, I remember working with one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies and for the first time talking about adding social media support to the contact center. Similar to email in 2001, Facebook and Twitter were taking off and consumers were growing tired of the unfriendly phone systems that made it impossible to speak with an actual person. Furthermore, waiting over 24 hours for an email response just didn’t seem like it was necessary if brands were going to monitor their social channels in near real time.

Wow have times changed in the past 5 years with the emergence of social customer service! Now brands are devoting Twitter handles to customer support, hiring large teams focused on social care engagement and integrating social media into their CRM systems.

But has social customer service really arrived? Do consumers actually use Twitter as a support channel when they need help?

I thought I would do some quick research on just how much social customer service has grown. Since Facebook pages are not dedicated to customer support, accurate numbers are tougher to acquire. Because of this, I focused my mini research project on Twitter. Looking at adoption across several industries and then the largest programs within those verticals it become clear there are 4 major industries driving the most social care volume.

So leading off is the Communications industry.

Why?

Traditionally these companies have not been known for stellar phone and email support. However, many have lead the charge in social care so consumers are migrating to where they will get the most helpful responsive service.

Second we have what I’ll call the Internet/Device industry. 

Why?

Demographics. The typical consumer for these companies is very mobile savvy, comfortable with social and always online which makes it easy to understand why they would gravitate towards a social support channel.

A close third is the Airline industry.

Why?

Let’s face it, travel is stressful. When consumers are trying to get some place important for work, vacation, or a significant event and there is an issue it can be emotional. The speed of response offered in social care vs traditional channels can make the difference between getting a flight home for a child’s soccer game or having to miss it!

It’s notable to point out that only Delta Airlines has a dedicated Twitter support handle, the other airlines are engaging customers on their main brand Twitter handle.

Interesting that a particular airline is missing from the list. Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir 28,000) known for their outstanding customer service. Is it because they provide such amazing service their customers don’t require a high volume of Twitter social care or because in their Twitter bio they push consumers to another non-social support channel?

Last but not least we have the Financial Services industry. 

Why?

It’s a combination of all the reasons listed above. Ever have an issue with your finances? You better believe you want help right away and traditionally the companies below don’t exactly have a sterling reputation for responsive service with phone and email. Banking is also an online and mobile experience, making it easy to launch Twitter and tweet a question or concern by consumers comfortable with social media.

I think it’s important to note that the lists in this blog post are not ranking the quality of social customer service provided by these brands. It’s strictly an unofficial ranking of the largest Twitter social care programs within industries with the most consumer adoption.

The goal of this blog post is to highlight how social customer service continues to see huge acceptance from consumers and create more awareness around social care.

Looking ahead to 2020 I wonder what the next disruptive customer support channel will be? Any guesses?

Dreamforce Spotlight: Social Customer Care

Throughout the Dreamforce conference Nov. 18-21st in San Francisco there will be certain themes commanding a lot of attention. One of those themes is Social Customer Care. I’m fortunate enough to be helping facilitate a session on that very topic Monday, November 18th at 12pm PST at the Westin St. Francis called Social Customer Service – The Basic Building Blocks.

I’ll be presenting along with Matt Staub (https://twitter.com/staubio) an expert in the field of social care. He formerly ran social customer care at H&R Block and recently joined social media agency Graphicmachine (https://twitter.com/graphicmachine).

During our practice sessions he really impressed me with how he can tell the story of social care in how to launch a program for beginners while leading up to creating a center of excellence for those brands that are more advanced. Needless to say, you won’t want to miss it!

Here are some of the discussion topics we plan to cover.

1. Why is social customer care important? Let’s start with the basics and a simple example. Below is an existing BMW customer, wanting to buy a new one, that chose Twitter as his preferred channel to express his frustration over poor customer service.

By the way, nothing against BMW, I could have gone to any Global 1000 brand Twitter or Facebook page and found a complaint very similar to this one. The more important take away? This example shows why social customer service is so important.

2. Why is it critical to be transparent and resolve social customer care issues in the social channel? Resist the urge to take the conversation offline! Nothing is more frustrating than tweeting a brand only to get a response that says “Call or Email Us”.

3. How do I measure social care and how is it different from traditional social metrics? Here are a few examples;

Social Media Marketing Metrics	Social Service Metrics
Sentiment & Share of Conversation	How Many Customers Thanked Today
Friends, Followers, Views, Likes, ReTweets	How Many Customers Helped Today
Word Clouds & Hot Topics	Volume of Service Issues by Source (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Forums, Blogs)
Influencer Analysis	Top 10 Complaints & Inquiries in Social
Geo-Location Insights	Response Time & Escalations By Source

 

4. How do I link social customers to ‘real’ customers in your CRM system? For the answer, remember back 12 years ago when you started interacting with customers over email.

Apply for a store credit card (enter email address), call customer service (can I have your email address), join a loyalty program (email address), buy something online (create a username aka email address), want to receive coupons and special offers (email address), etc.

Fast forward and what do most Fortune 500 companies have? Giant CRM systems filled with customer information linked with an email address. At every consumer touch point its time to start collecting social profile information and linking to their customer record. (Social sign-in with Facebook is a great way to start)

5. How quickly should I respond in social? In industries like retail, restaurants and travel most social care issues are posted from a mobile device at the point of incident. Waiting 24 hours to respond, or only offering assistance 8am-5pm EST Monday-Friday, and the customer is long gone, literally and figuratively. 

6. Should I hire brand new agents or leverage agents from the call center team? That’s not a black and white, yes or no answer. Rather look at the profile of a successful social agent. Their character likely portrays a great sense of humor, good writing skills, creative, lover of social media, helpful person offline, pride in your products and brand. Check those boxes and I think you have your answer.

7. Marketing owns social media so how do I team with them on social care? One idea is to consider creating social media ‘swim lanes’ so marketing can focus on what they do best and customer care and focus on retaining consumers and driving loyalty. Here is a simple swim lane example;

Marketing/PR	Customer Service
Future Product Questions	Product Complaints
Campaign Complaints/Inquiries	Product Suggestions
Crisis Communications	Existing Ownership Product Inquiries
Blogger/Influencer Interactions	Warranty & Rebate Questions
Upcoming Events	Service & Policy Issues
Charity/Environmental Concerns	Thanking Customers For Compliments

 

8. How do I integrate my social media listening tool with my CRM system?  We’ll be discussing how social hub is helping clients monitor MORE social conversation with LESS people by automatically routing ‘actionable’ social interactions to the right resource. Who couldn’t use a little productivity bump?

9. It’s a surprise! I can’t tell you everything from our session! See you Monday at noon in San Francisco.

Why Marriott Is Not ‘Plugged In’ to the Customer Experience

Hope you all have fun plans lined up for the 4th, I can’t wait to spend a few long weekends in northern Michigan later in July and August. Last thing I want you to do is stay inside and read this blog on your laptop so kick those shoes off, put your feet up, grab a cold one and pull up No Fluff Social Media on the tablet out on the patio!

Last week I blogged about my new favorite company, Uber. They reinvented taxi service, you should check them out!

Another travel company recently caught my attention for the wrong reason. Marriott!

First, let me say I’m a huge fan of Marriott and a loyal customer. Since I entered the work force in 1999 most of my years I’ve spent traveling a few days a week. I’ve spent over 100 nights at all the major chains including Hilton, Holiday Inn and Starwood.

But because of their price, rewards program, convenient locations and consistent experience I’ve gravitated more and more towards Marriott as I approach 400 nights stayed.

Last week I flew to Chicago and because I’m such a customer experience nerd I wanted to stay at the brand new Fairfield Inn literally right across the street from Salesforce.com Chicago headquarters on Illinois St. The day I checked in was their 5th day open.

This is where it goes down hill.

Question for you. If you spent all day flying and working on the go, checked-in to a hotel and got to your room for the night what is one of the first things you would do?

For me that answer is charge my phone, laptop and other devices.

Here is the problem. Marriott designed a beautiful new hotel and didn’t put plugs by the desk or the night stand. I know what you are thinking, “Chad, that’s impossible, it was probably one of those cool modern new desks where the plug is underneath or the back of the lamp on the nightstand is a secret power strip.”

Not the case! How could this possibly happen in today’s connected world? There was a plug in the entry way and the bathroom but not helpful for a laptop and cellphone while working.

Did I mention I may have set off the fire alarm at 6am accidentally when I was there? Yeah Marriott and I were not on good terms last week. I typically leave the hot water running after I get out of the shower to remove the wrinkles from my shirts. Well as soon as I opened the bathroom door, everyone got a wake up call.

I only add this piece of the story because engineering came to my room so I asked them about the plugs and they couldn’t find any either. Here are some pictures to prove it!

The closest plug to the desk is apparently somewhere down this hole which isn’t accessible.

I had to pull out the night stand and unplug the clock to plug in my iPhone. Then do it again the next day when housekeeping moved everything back.

What is funny about this whole thing, 4 days before I checked in I sent this tweet;

Why did I send this tweet? No I do not have a crystal ball! The customer experience is about how you make people feel. So what is one of the worst feelings in the world? When you are out and about at a restaurant, bar, grocery store, plane, stadium and your phone dies. Wireless charging stations are relatively inexpensive, why aren’t more places offering this? Wouldn’t you pick a restaurant, movie theater, retail store, coffee shop over another if you knew you could charge your phone?

Lastly, perhaps your thinking. “Chad, Fairfield is not really a business traveler hotel so that’s why they don’t have a lot of plugs.” Baloney, in fact a family traveling on the weekend is going to be a bigger problem. A family of 4 has 4 phones, 4 tablets/laptops, my gosh I think I’m going to open up a power strip store inside the Fairfield!

Back to Marriott, so you guys know I’m going to tweet Marriott about this right? Check out their Twitter bio. “Re-imagining the future of travel. Check out our innovations and submit your ideas on how to #TravelBrilliantly.”

Perfect, I apparently have an innovative idea no one at Marriott thought of, ADD SOME FRIGGIN” PLUGS TO YOUR HOTEL ROOMS! Genius I know, hold the applause.

Here is the tweet I sent.

You’ll notice I sent a tweet to Fairfield as well after I realized Marriott probably created a branded Twitter handle for Fairfield. Interestingly enough, check out their Twitter bio. #LetsGetItDone is based on how productive you can be while staying at a Fairfield for business or leisure travel. Unless of course being productive requires a laptop, iPad or iPhone. 

How to Complain on Facebook and Twitter

What’s fun and exciting this week? My last post on “How Kroger Ruined, Then Saved My Daughter’s Birthday” was the third most popular post of all time here on No Fluff Social Media. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read it.

I often write about how big companies can improve their customer care in social media and I got to thinking perhaps some of you would be interested to know how to complain or ask a question of those brands on Facebook or Twitter.

For example, what if you get really bad service at Kroger or your frustrated with your AT&T cell phone bill always being wrong. Today, you may dial the 1-800 customer service number and may not find a good experience.

It’s possible you have to fumble through one of those dreaded IVR’s, you might wait on hold for a while or be limited to only calling from 9-5pm EST Monday through Friday.

Maybe you’ve tried email and had to fill out one of those pain in the butt contact us forms then had to wait 2-3 days for a simple response.

The emergence of Facebook and Twitter has given consumers like you and I a new convenient channel to interact with the companies we do business with like grocery stores, airlines and restaurants.

Interested? Below I’ve provided directions on how to interact with brands and a few examples so you can see what other consumers post.

The first example is Kroger on Facebook.

1. First, navigate to the Kroger Facebook page.

2. Locate the comment box on the top left side just under their cover photo.

3. Write your question, complaint or praise and click post. Simple as that. (keep it professional, swearing and being disrespectful may get your comment deleted or ignored)

Below is an example of a typical complaint a customer may have on a brand page like Kroger.

Here is an example from the AT&T Facebook page. Sometimes other customers will comment on your post.

Ideally, a brand will respond to your post very quickly like in this Lowe’s example below. Reminder, you can post questions and even give a positive shout out, Facebook comments aren’t just for complaining. Within the hour, Lowe’s responded with helpful follow-up information.

Let’s move from Facebook to Twitter.

A few days ago I posted a comment on the Delta Airlines Twitter account. I flew from Detroit to Chicago last week and they announced that due to the short nature of the flight, there was no time for drink service.

That seemed strange since my Southwest and American Airlines flights from Detroit to Chicago in the past month both served drinks. Obviously not a huge deal but I thought I would send Delta a tweet. I think you’ll find it interesting what happened from there.

First I wanted to find the Delta Airlines Twitter handle so I did a Google search. (Some companies have created a specific customer service Twitter handle like @DeltaAssist)

Second, I clicked the blue post button in the top right corner of the Delta Twitter Bio. Next I typed my comment in the comment box. Last I just hit Tweet. (Notice on the left Delta has posted the first names and Twitter initials of their Twitter customer service team)

First, Delta did not take the time to respond to my tweet. But guess who did? Since I mentioned American Airlines in my tweet they responded almost immediately which led to a back and forth engagement. Pretty cool!

Here is an example from Best Buy, it appears they are monitoring closely since they responded 2 minutes after the post with an offer to help.

This guy is not happy with Volkswagen!

A few keys to remember

1. Not all brands are good at monitoring and responding to questions and complaints on Facebook and Twitter. Your comment might be ignored.

2. Sometimes brands won’t answer your complaint or question in social media but will just respond with “call or email us” which can be really frustrating.

3. The above example screen shots were done from my laptop, however, it works the exact same way from the Facebook and Twitter mobile apps which is why it’s so convenient!

4. If you post a complaint later at night or on the weekends, expect a potential delay in response. Some brands are monitoring just during normal business hours, the good news, more and more companies are expanding their coverage.

Social Customer Care has given us as consumers a more powerful voice to fight back against bad customer service. Brands understand the viral nature of social media and are scared that just one bad experience can explode into a gigantic public relations nightmare.

Not to mention companies understand that what other consumers post on Facebook, Twitter and review sites help us determine whether we are going to buy a product or not.

In the past you’ve heard the word of mouth saying, “If a customer has a bad experience, they may tell 10 friends.” Well in the world of social media, “If a customer has a bad experience they may tell 10,000 friends!”

If you thought this post was helpful and your family or friends may be interested in how to post a comment on a brand’s Facebook or Twitter account please share this post, thanks so much again for reading my blog.

Photo Blog From Switzerland

Good morning everyone, how was your week? Hope everyone learned something new and feels good about their contribution at home and at work. You have my sincere thanks for deciding to click on this blog post!

Do me a favor, stop and think about the most beautiful place you have ever laid eyes on.  I’ve been extremely fortunate to travel to some nice places in my life. Places like Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park in Northern Michigan, hiking the rain forest in Hawaii, views of the Golden Gate Bridge with the San Francisco skyline in the background and gorgeous Lake Tahoe in the mountains.

I’ve also seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, rode the London Eye, strolled the streets of Savannah Georgia, drove thru the desert from San Diego to Las Vegas, visited the amazing wineries in Napa, stood amazed at the view from the top of the World Trade Center and swam in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean.

But I have never seen something so beautiful as Lake Geneva and the Swiss Alps where I was lucky enough to spend the past week. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Here is what this beautiful mountain and lake scene looks like in the rain

This is the actual view from the Salesforce.com office in Switzerland (notice the white caps in the background)

European city have so much character with their cobble stone store and cafe lined streets

Since I started this blog to advocate for social media I thought I would just close with how social ties into these incredible photos.

First, without choosing a career in social media this trip to Switzerland would have never been possible.

Second, it has taken a lot of hard work in some not so amazing places to earn the spectacular views of the Swiss Alps. Places like my dark basement office at 6am trying to read and study how I can help my clients execute better in social. Places like late night conference rooms with no windows and cold pizza fine tuning important presentations with my colleagues. And last but not least dealing with the crazy airports, delays, cancelled flights and lack of sleep as the necessity of a life on the road on my social media journey takes its toll.

I hope all of you who have a career in social media or contemplating starting one realize the phenomenal opportunity we all have to make a difference.  It can be challenging and requires lots of hard work to make it to the mountain top, but as you can see the views are second to none up there.

Can’t wait to see where social media will take me next! Where is social taking you?

Switzerland: Chocolate, Cheese, Watches and Social Media?

Good Morning ‘No Fluff’ Social Media readers. Last week’s post on social ad’s was a hit, I’m thankful so many of you took the time to reach out and let me know you enjoyed the videos. I’ll understand if people take a break from my blog this week with the holiday weekend but if you chose to be here you have my gratitude.

Duty calls so it’s no holiday in the Schaeffer household. Especially for my unselfish, patient and understanding wife. I’ll be hopping on a plane for Switzerland today while she manages three kids by herself for a week. I don’t think my amazing wife reads my boring blogs but if you do, I love you honey! Did I mention your beautiful, stunning and gorgeous?

I’m going to be speaking at a workshop on Social Customer Service. A topic I love. I’m still finalizing the presentation but here is the outline. What do you think?

1. The History of Customer Service

• From the general store when the owner knew every customer by name thru phone, email and now Facebook and Twitter.

2. How the Customer Has Evolved

• The most important word in Customer Service is Customer, not Service. It’s always about the customer and the customer has changed. We are much more knowledgeable today, we buy what our family/friends recommend and want to do business with companies that align with our personal values.

3. The Customer Service Department is Dead

• Brands can’t afford to have customer service as a standalone department. It simply has to be weaved into the fabric of everything the organization does. It’s like culture, there is no culture department, it’s the way people behave and make decisions. Customer service is the same.

4. Marketing Will You Marry Me? Love, Customer Service

• Customer Service IS the new marketing. As consumers we don’t care about TV commercials, newspaper ad’s and big billboards. We get online and read reviews and ask our peers before purchasing a product or service. Customer service and marketing have to work in concert because customer acquisition and retention are no longer mutually exclusive, they are one in the same. Happy customers buy more, happy customers get new customers to buy. Dissatisfied customers leave, and take potential consumers with them.

5. Listening Strategies for Social Customer Service

• Traditional social listening is focused on brand/product mentions, competitors and campaign measurement. Listening for social care is proactively looking for consumers that need help, have a question, communicated a negative experience, took the time to share a positive experience or perhaps just in pre-purchase mode doing a little online research.

6. Social Customer Care Metrics and KPI’s

• As discussed in the previous point, because listening strategies are different between marketing and customer service so are the metrics. For example, social care metrics measure how many customers helped each day, top complaints and products issues. However, although different on the surface, service can learn from marketing because shouldn’t we be measuring likes, shares and reach of our service recovery engagements?

Well that’s an appetizer, there will be much more to the presentation including;

• Operational models on creating a Center of Excellence vs Localized support vs Centralized program structures
• Technology requirements and the ecosystem of tools required to deliver outstanding social customer service
• Social Customer Care Playbook. The process, training, certification, reports, and roles/responsibilities involved in launching a program.
• Social Customer Care Maturity Curve. Excited to be delivering a brand new creation to help brands with a crawl, walk, run, fly approach. Social care is a journey, not a project with a start and end date.

I’ll let you know next week how it goes hopefully with some really cool pictures of Switzerland, I’ve heard its beautiful.  Have a fun safe holiday weekend and thanks again to all of you who comment, share and like my blog.

My New Favorite Social Ad of All-Time

Happy Saturday ‘No Fluff’ readers! I have to warn you, there is a high amount of ‘Fluff’ in this week’s post. In fact you might even need a tissue there is so much ‘Fluff’.

I was reading a daddy blog and came across a social ad on YouTube for a juice company in the UK called Robinson’s. It’s only 60 seconds long but literally had me in puddles. There is a huge surprise at the end that will likely catch you off guard as it did me. I tell you this because the ad is so much better the second time you watch it once you know how it ends. Trust me, watch it twice. And have tissues on hand.

So what does this ad have to do with social media?

First, in the 2 weeks since its launch it has been viewed almost 700k times.

Second, Robinson’s has been posting the video on their Facebook page and it has driven a significant increase in engagement with their customers compared to their typical posts.

Third, they say the best marketing and advertising content has to either make you ‘laugh’ or ‘cry’, big check mark on the latter. Fortunately in social when you do one of those two things your customers love to share that content with all their friends and family because we all love to make the people we care about laugh and/or cry.

Fourth, it proves once again the value of a story. Social media has changed us as human beings. We love to connect, we love to share, we love to buy products from companies that stand for something that matches our personal values. In this case, I’m a dad, I love my 2 little boys (and my daughter) and I strive to be not just a dad but a friend to my sons. Compare this to a stereotypical juice drink ad, “We have 10% more real fruit juice than our leading competitor, check your local Sunday paper for a $.50 cent off coupon.” Which juice are you buying?

By the way, in case you were wondering. Here was the reigning champ on my all time favorite social ad’s of all time list. Yes, it’s another tear jerker, what can I say, I can try to act tough with a blog called “No Fluff Social Media” but at the end of the day I’m a big softie!

So with that intro, bet you’ll never guess what it’s about. A daddy and his little girl (happens to even have the same name as my daughter). Please enjoy, and as always thanks for tuning in to my weekly blog. Make a dad’s day and share these two videos with a virtual box of tissues.

What Keeps Me Up At Night

Good morning everyone! Happy Friday.  More importantly Happy Mother’s Day Weekend to all of you fortunate enough to have children, what a blessing they are thanks to you Mom. I’m very lucky, my mom Donna is an amazing mother and I love that I moved back to Detroit to spend more time with her. As lucky as I am, my 3 children have really hit the jackpot with Staci. One day is nowhere near enough to celebrate all she does for our children.

Mom’s….and Dad’s for that matter in social media I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. There are so many exciting opportunities and challenges in social that I thought I’d put a list together of the things I’ve been working on with clients that keep me up and night.

1. Social Sales – Everybody wants to know how do I make money with social, how do I show a hard ROI.
2. Social Customer Care – Executing the use case for customer retention and customer service in social media and showing the impact on retention/loyalty.
3. Social Marketing – Optimizing the most effective and efficient use of marketing investment across the social internet, social marketing is the last unaccountable spend but not for much longer.
4. Competitive Analysis – There is such a hyper focus on competitors in social media, wish more resources were focused on improving internally first.
5. Social Technology – Integrating social media listening, publishing, advertising and search strategies to optimize social investment, resources and results.
6. Social Partner Management – Define, document and present a preferred social media ecosystem including digital and creative agencies, media buyers, solution partners and system integrators.
7. Customer Experience – Present a coordinated Web/Mobile/Social customer experience every single time.
8. Employee Engagement – Educate, create and harness the power of a brand’s greatest social media advocates? Think about the power of employee advocates for a brand like Lowe’s with all those customer touch points.
9. Social Culture – Drive the same cultural revolution inside a brand at a faster speed than consumer behavior is changing on the outside in social.
10. Social Decision Making – Driving adoption to the point to where a brand routinely leverages social data and customer feedback to make improved business decisions.
11. Social Center of Excellence – Create a social media nerve center centralizing key functions including PR, Communications, Agency, Customer Service, IT and Marketing into one physical location all centered around the customer.
12. Big Data – Measure the impact of online to offline transactions on new customer acquisition, conquests and retention.
13. Social Media Playbook – Building a social media playbook outlining the key goals, metrics, roles/responsibilities, process, policies, content and engagement guidelines, education and adoption strategies.
14. Sponsorships & Events – Maximize the positive impact of social media on sponsorship opportunities and live events.
15. PR & Crisis Management – Protect the brand and mitigate risk from the tidal wave of negative sentiment.

I think it’s going to be a long night! See you next week. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Part 5 – Worst Social Media Advice (Listening)

I hope everyone’s morning was as good as the one I had! I turn 37 today and woke up to lots of extra hugs and kisses from the kids.

Before I dive in, thank you! I know life is crazy hectic but if you are reading this you decided to spend a few minutes with me and for that I’m very gracious.

I have a question for you. When it comes to social media, what’s that itch you can’t seem to scratch? That one thing you just can’t figure out? I’m always looking for new inspiration for a future blog.

Let’s get to it!

Like many of you, I consider myself a student of social media and therefore I read lots of blogs, online articles and follow industry leaders on social networks. I’m also lucky enough to work for Salesforce.com on the Marketing Cloud team with some of the most innovative social minds and technologies on the planet. Finally I get to spend time with our amazing clients discussing current challenges and where social is headed next.

Through all this experience unfortunately I come across a lot of really bad social media advice. So a few weeks ago I started a five-week blog series highlighting the dark side of social media consulting and how you can spot the boneheads from the real experts.

I started the series with pointers on getting the most out of Sentiment and how to turn a basic metric into an actionable insight.

Next I wrote about how to avoid wasting time on measuring Competitors and putting your limited time, resources and budget towards competitive research that will actually provide a return.

Third, I covered the buzzword social media Insights. As we all know, insights alone don’t get us promoted, drive sales or a better customer experience. Most consultants don’t take the time to take an insight and turn it into an input into another part of the organization to really drive positive change.

Last week, I covered the 2nd biggest black eye in social media and that’s ‘Big Data’. Like Stephen Covey, the key here is begin with the end in mind. What do you want to know and if you knew it, how would it help your business.  For example, is there a relationship between how active a customer is in social media to buying more of your products?

Drum roll, ready for in my humble opinion the single worst piece of advice in social media? It’s going to shock you!

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..

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Listening!

Before you disagree, let me explain.

You might be thinking Listening is where all great social media programs start. Listening is the most important part of a successful social program. Without Listening first, just diving into social media is like a sailboat with a rudder.

We are in 100% agreement on all those statements. Here is where I hope to give you something to think about.

Most experts would agree there are about five business cases for social media, in other words, 5 reasons to spend time, money and resources on social media in the first place.

1. Create brand awareness and more effective marketing

2. Provide social customer care

3. Social lead generation and sales

4. Public relations and brand protection

5. Social research & development

I realize there are many other reasons to do social media but most if not all probably roll up to one of these five higher level objectives.

Here is the problem with Listening.

1. Listening alone will not create brand awareness or improve marketing. You have to create compelling content based on your listening efforts.

2. If your customer has a problem or question, just listening and not responding is actually just going to make the problem worse.

3. When consumers in social show interest in your products and you listen but don’t engage or provide a call to action, there is no social revenue potential.

4. If you your brand is unfortunate and has a crisis, listening to the negative conversation about your brand and not reacting with a well thought out PR plan can cause significant long-term damage.

5. When listening in social across an entire industry like cell phones or tablets as a Samsung might do for R&D, none of the insights, trends or product improvements are going to happen from listening alone. It takes analysis, sharing the insights internally with product management and building new or better products to turn an ROI on social listening.

The moral of the story is, I think Listening because it’s so critical is where all social software and service professionals concentrate.  But we have let down our customers if we don’t drive beyond listening as an important first step in the process to actually producing results from that effort.

This is where I see brands really needing a lot of help. By now most companies get that you should have a Facebook page and Twitter account to connect with customers.  The roadblock to get to the next level of social maturity for a lot of major brands is being stuck on Listening only.

This is why I think Listening is the source of the worst social media advice in the industry. Did I change your mind?

I really enjoyed blogging for you with the five-part series on bad social media advice, hope you learned at least one small thing that can help make you and your brand a social media rock star.

Talk to you again next week, I’ll be blowing out a few candles today!